On May 29, House Speaker Jim Wright was about to resign. CBS
asked correspondent Eric Engberg to give his perspective on the
evolving story. "Politics didn't just turn ugly. It evolved from
a nasty presidential campaign that featured the GOP's famous
Willie Horton ad," he explained. This deft transformation of a
liberal complaint into a statement of fact is typical of what viewers
can expect from Engberg.

MediaWatch analysts reviewed a year of Engberg's reports (July 1, 1988 to June 30, 1989), including 59 on the CBS Evening News.
This review demonstrates that whenever possible, Engberg adds a
liberal spin to major news events and files pieces on liberal
agenda items no other network finds important enough to cover.
Here are some representative examples of Engberg at work:

THE CAMPAIGN. The majority of Engberg's reports in the
last half of 1988 focused on the "nasty" presidential campaign.
Engberg regularly accused Vice President George Bush of
leveling personal attacks on Governor Michael Dukakis. On August
8, for instance, he reported: "Bush continued to pound Michael
Dukakis personally, implying that the Democrats' wide lead in
the polls stems from ducking the issues."

Engberg also pounced on October 22, when Bush disavowed an
Illinois pamphlet suggesting criminals favored Dukakis,
asserting "It's one of the few times Bush has publicly voiced any
doubts about the pit-bull style Republican campaign. But he showed no
signs this week of deviating from a harsh personal-attack
style." Observing Bush on the stump during a November 4 campaign
swing, Engberg reported: "The headline in the pro-Bush Boston
tabloid [Boston Herald] told of bank overdrafts by the
state covered by borrowing. Bush, without taking note of the
fact that the federal deficit is now $155 billion, acted like an
outraged prosecutor." "Bush's read-all-about-it act with the
anti-Duke headline may have pleased the crowd," Engberg snidely
concluded, "but the big draw was 7,000 free lunches handed out
after he left."

IRAN-CONTRA. As the Oliver North trial came to an end,
Engberg preferred liberal lectures over a balanced presentation
of prosecution and defense. When the verdict came in on May 4,
he pieced together his lesson of Iran-Contra with video of
Reagan Administration figures: "Once secrecy is embraced, rather
than public debate and compromise, the freewheeling covert
operators can do as they wish because an invisible policy can't
be questioned...But secrecy leads to deception...Deception leads to
lies...Lies tear apart the rule of law...Could it happen again?
Scholars say yes, until Presidents accept the need to compromise
with Congress."

Later, on a CBS News special report, Engberg asked a second
time: "Can it happen again? If secrecy and misleading Congress
worked once," Engberg began, letting Democrat Clark Clifford
finish the sentence "...There is no absolute guarantee to keep
it from happening again. It depends upon the acceptance by a
President of our system of laws."

A month earlier, his liberal perspective on the world even
led to factual inaccuracy. On April 6 he charged: "George Bush
as Vice President carried promises of U.S. aid to the military
dictatorship of Honduras," misleading viewers about a government
that's been elected democratically since 1981.

EXCLUSIVES. Engberg never produced a story based on a
conservative agenda concern. On a few occasions, however,
Engberg filed stories on activities of liberal organizations,
focusing attention on subjects not considered newsworthy by the
other networks. On June 13, Engberg reported left-wing attacks on
corporate support for university research. "Corporate giving to
universities is more like give and take....to the point that critics
worry the pursuit of knowledge is losing out to the pursuit of
profit."

Engberg interviewed Leonard Minsky of the Coalition for
Universities in the Public Interest, who said "With the advent
of money and greed in the university, the ethics of Wall Street
have also invaded the university." Engberg's strange conclusion:
"Congress is also concerned about taxpayer money being lost.
After all, universities are kept afloat with federal dollars,
money that's supposed to benefit the public, not some bottom line."

This past Spring, the left-wing Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) advocated adding money for
low-income housing to the S&L bailout bill by occupying
federally owned housing. "If taxpayers are going to kick in $40
billion, they argue, then the whole structure of financing homes
should be made to benefit the little guy, the idea behind savings and
loans in the first place," Engberg explained in an April 12
story. Engberg ended the report: "As the Congress races to do
something, the process of writing the bill has turned into what
one House staffer calls chaos. Activists hope to take advantage
of that and push for changes in a system they claim locks the
little guy out of the housing market."

On the eve of President Bush's first State of the Union
address February 9, Engberg again served as the CBS spin doctor:
"As George Bush presents his priorities tonight, there's
evidence in this poll and elsewhere that the nation will respond
to a very American idea: that their government by the people sometimes
must act boldly for the people." The CBS poll found support for
the "very American idea" of more government social spending: 55
percent in favor of government day care, 66 percent for more
student aid, and 71 percent for nursing home care.

To explain these liberal causes, Engberg brought on liberal
economist Robert Reischauer (then with the Brookings Institution
and now the Director of the Democratic majority's Congressional
Budget Office) and labor economist Audrey Freedman, who said "I
think the country's beginning to develop a sense of guilt after
eight years of saying 'I don't care. I feel good, and I don't
care.'"

The journalist's only value is credibility. Engberg cannot
maintain his credibility if he continues to promote liberal
ideology as news reporting. An ongoing record of bias, of
turning liberal interpretations into facts and liberal causes into
feature stories, leading even to factual inaccuracy should bring into
question the credibility of this network correspondent.

NewsBites: Cuomo in '92

CUOMO IN '92. Last year the Newspaper Guild, the union
representing over 25,000 reporters across the country, endorsed
Michael Dukakis for President. At this year's national
convention in Albany the reporters made clear who they favor for
1992. "Hundreds of newsmen shelved their objectivity," began a
June 21 United Press International story, "and gave a standing
ovation to New York Governor Mario Cuomo who appeared dumbstruck
when one reporter...shouted 'Mario in '92.'" Another reporter
repeated the phrase a bit later, "triggering yet another
outburst of applause."

Disappointed Guild President Charles Dale introduced Cuomo:
"I wish I had the permission to introduce him today as the next
President of United States, but I don't."

The reporters had a politically active meeting. Media
columnist Cliff Kincaid reported that the Guild "passed a
resolution supporting abortion rights and it joined the ACLU and
other groups in a brief attacking the Missouri law restricting
abortions recently upheld by the Supreme Court."

SMOKESCREEN ON CLEAN AIR. When President Bush announced his
Clean Air Program on July 21, CBS and NBC presented liberal
environmentalists as the only legitimate critics of the plan.
Saying "critics call it a bill right out of the Reagan
Administration," NBC's Jim Miklaszewski claimed environmentalists
thought Bush "had bowed to industry pressure to dilute it." On
CBS the same day, Lesley Stahl echoed that complaint: "The
President watered down his plan by compromising with industry on car
emissions, the major contributor to urban smog." Stahl added:
"But overall, the critics charge, the bill isn't strong enough to
achieve healthy air by the year 2000." The two stories included
seven comments from Congressmen. Only one defended Bush's plan.

In a column the same week, economics writer Warren Brookes
analyzed the estimated cost to industry: about $400 billion over
the next 20 years. But CBS and NBC never contemplated the
effects on American business and the inevitable loss of jobs: not
one industry spokesman got time to comment.

HOUSING HOKUM. "A gloomy report today on housing for the nation's poor and minorities," Dan Rather intoned on the July 10 CBS Evening News.
"It's a simple equation, and a recipe for disaster," reported
CBS correspondent Mark Phillips. "A study by a Washington
research group has shown that while in the 1970's, there were
roughly enough low-rent housing units for the poor, through the
'80s, the number of poor has increased by 25 percent while low
rent units have dropped by 20 percent."

But according to page 10 of this "gloomy report" by the
liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the number of
low-rent units declined 19 percent since 1970, not 1980. "It
should be noted that the decline...was greatest between 1970 and
1978," the report stated. When asked to explain the
discrepancy, Phillips told MediaWatch that "the
base points of the study were not identical," so "we kind of
fudged" the statistics to "stay honest to the general trend."

CATERING TO NADER. "Ralph Nader is a legend, perhaps the only
universally recognized symbol of pure honesty and clean energy
left in a culture that, after being shot through with greed,
cynicism and weariness, is oddly proud of its hardened self,"
Marc Fisher wrote in a fawning July 23 Washington Post Magazine profile story. "Two decades after he slew General Motors," the Post
reporter gushed, Nader "is a reminder of what we once hoped to
be." Fisher made no effort to contain his admiration. "He might
as well be Moses, judging from the reception he gets on the
road," began one paragraph. "Ralph Nader is a simple old-
fashioned man," he declared a bit later, adding, "he may be the
only person in the country who uses carbon paper."

"Now the nation's voice of honest progress is looking
homeward," Fisher began the last paragraph. "Ralph Nader's
America is a paradise lost, a nation that has taken the simple,
good ways of its past and poisoned them with greed and evil."

Earlier Fisher explained that "if Nader's work is his wife,
reporters are his mistresses. Nader says little of what he has
accomplished could have happened without committed newspeople
who spread his message." Fisher should know.

THE L.A. REALITY DODGERS. For a textbook example of the excesses of front-page "news analysis," check the July 8 Los Angeles Times.
Correspondent Michael Parks announced that "With the same vigor
and vision with which he has set about reforming the Soviet
Union, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is now embarked on
reshaping Europe for the 21st Century."

To Parks, this does not mean reshaping Western Europe into
Eastern Europe. In fact, Parks reported, "He has no blueprint
for the new Europe, no plan for what he calls 'the common
European home,' not even an agenda for negotiations beyond broad
topics such as disarmament, environmental protection, and economic
cooperation...What Gorbachev is offering is his own relentless
energy." In between sentences like these, Parks quoted paragraph
after paragraph from Kremlin officials and Gorbachev speeches. It
begs the question: Does repeating Soviet rhetoric without
looking at Soviet reality qualify as "analysis" -- or
demonstrate the lack of it? "Deeds, not words," some skeptics
may demand, but for some reporters, words alone will do.

IOWA EMBARRASSMENT. After the gun turret on the USS Iowa
exploded ABC and CBS repeatedly talked with Admiral Gene
LaRocque of the Center for Defense Information. On the April 20 Good Morning America
he called the 16-inch guns antiquated, just like "the
old-fashioned muskets in the Revolutionary War." LaRocque was
also featured on ABC's World News Tonight and Nightline. The next morning, Admiral LaRocque reversed himself on CBS This Morning,
claiming the Iowa's aging technology was "too complicated for
new crews to operate." The only consistency the networks seemed
to care about was LaRocque's criticism of the naval equipment.

On July 18, NBC's Fred Francis was the only network
correspondent to report what an official naval investigation had
determined: "The Navy has ruled out mechanical malfunctions,
accidental detonations, electrical flaws, and all other
technical reasons for the tragedy." Francis said the Navy found
"compelling circumstantial evidence that the horrific explosion was
an act of suicide." Not surprisingly, ABC and CBS ignored the
report.

DUPE FOR KOOP. With Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's
stay in Washington at an end, ABC's Dr. Tim Johnson produced a
fawning review of his favorite enlightened conservative.
Throughout his July 14 20/20 story, Johnson focused on
Koop's clashes with the "far right." In fact, Johnson refused to
refer to conservatives who disapproved of Koop's actions
concerning AIDS and abortion as anything but "far right."

Concerning Koop's report on AIDS, which encouraged the use of
condoms to avoid the disease, "the reaction from the far right
was predictable. To this day, Dr. Koop is astounded by the
vehemence of the reaction." Johnson wondered "why couldn't the
far right see the distinction you were making between
[homosexuals] and the activity?" Koop's answer was that there is
"a true hatred of homosexuals" among conservatives.

STAHL'S ALL FOR TAXES. "Won't it become necessary to
raise taxes? Isn't that just a bald truth?" CBS News White House
correspondent Lesley Stahl posed those questions to Office of
Management and Budget Director Richard Darman on the July 23 Face the Nation. "All we keep doing," Stahl complained, "is cutting the domestic budget because taxes aren't being asked for."

Stahl's tax advocacy can't be dismissed as mere goading by a
sharp interviewer. Three days later, reporting the "news" from
the White House lawn, Stahl pushed the tax button again.
"Pressure for increased spending," Stahl charged on the July 26 Evening News,
leads to the "inevitable question: will the President be forced
to go to the public and say 'we have to pay for what we owe?'"
Guess what Stahl said "that means." You guessed it: "taxes."

LEFTY LINDSEY. Lindsey Gruson's July 21 New York Times
report mourning the dim prospects for collective farming in El
Salvador cast the proposed free-market reforms in a leftist
light. Headlined "For the Peasants of El Salvador, Promised Land
Seems to Recede," Gruson reported fears that "the oligarchy, a
tiny group of intermarried families that have traditionally run
El Salvador as a personal profit center, will be allowed to
reimpose its iron-fisted control over the agricultural-based
economy."

Gruson's bias was also apparent in his use of labels:
"President Cristiani and extreme rightists blame land
redistribution for the drop in agricultural output." Land owner
Orlando de Sola is "a pillar of the oligarchy and one of the
country's most extreme rightists...who sometimes calls himself a
monarchist." Gruson pointed out that de Sola's estate is patrolled
by machine-gun carrying guards, maintaining "The brewing campaign
against the land program reflects the newfound confidence of the
often violent right."

By contrast, communist guerrilla Joaquin Villalobos, a
spokesman for the often violent left, was introduced simply as
"the senior rebel commander" and the author of a recent article
in the American journal Foreign Policy.

GUNNING FOR TIME. Trying to prove that the pen really is mightier than the sword, Time
magazine used its First Amendment rights to attack the Second
Amendment. The July 17 cover story, "7 Deadly Days," presented
464 pictures on 25 pages of Americans who died from gunshot
wounds during the week of May 1-7, along with two pages of
interpretation.

"I remembered back in 1969 Life magazine did a similar project with Vietnam," Senior Editor Terry Zintl recalled during the July 11 Good Morning America,
"It brought home the human cost of that war, and I thought that
this would be a very good way of bringing home the human toll
of guns....I hope it'll get some other people angry about the
number of gun deaths." Time compared the gun deaths to
the 48,700 deaths annually from automobile accidents: all
'victims' of inanimate objects. But were the 464 gun deaths all
'victims' of inanimate objects? Well...no. In fact, 216, (about
47 percent) of the dead committed suicide, a very deliberate,
conscious act. Whose fault is this? Time quoted the son of a
woman who committed suicide, "Mom died that day because of the
totally irresponsible attitude that we Americans have developed
about gun use and ownership." Time agreed, adding, "Every week, more American families are exposed to that irreversible lesson."

GOOD GRIEF AMERICA: NOT THE BIBLE! Don't expect to hear or see much of the Bible on Good Morning America,
at least judging by the experience of conservative syndicated
columnist Cal Thomas. In June Thomas wrote a column on the San
Francisco "domestic partnership" law. GMA producer Sue Hester
read the piece (in which Thomas quoted one Bible verse) and
invited him to appear to discuss the new law conferring legal
status to homosexual couples. As Thomas was about to leave home for the
show, Hester called Thomas to say ABC had chosen someone else to
appear. Hester explained a more senior producer "was concerned
you might quote some Bible verses." Thomas called this producer,
Rickie Gaffney, who refused to deny Hester had quoted her
accurately.

ROONEY TUNES.60 Minutes commentator Andy
Rooney thinks communism has gotten a bum rap: "Communism got in
with a bad crowd when it was young and never had a fair chance,"
Rooney wrote in a June 26 Op-Ed piece for The New York Times.

According to Rooney, "the original communist philosophy may
have been wrong, but they didn't plan it as a totalitarian
system... Communist governments have been dominated by men, not
Marxist ideals." Rooney explained that the "communist idea of
creating a society in which everyone does his best for the good of
everyone is appealing and fundamentally a more uplifting idea than
capitalism."

Rooney conceded that "communism's only real weakness seems to
be that it doesn't work," but Rooney had less kind words to say
about capitalism: "It seems sad and sort of a spiritual defeat
for us all that an economic system based on doing it for No. 1
is more successful than one based on a noble ideal."
Unthreatened by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 threat, "We
will bury you," Rooney confidently contended, "Mr. Khrushchev
didn't mean anything more evil than that communism would be the winner
over capitalism in the competition to do the best for the most
people in the world." Besides, Rooney concluded, "They aren't
burying us; we're burying them. But it's no reason to gloat."

SELECTIVE SOURCES. Speaking of Rooney, ever wonder why reporters select liberal groups as sources? Look to the July/August Washington Journalism Review (WJR) and its annual "Directory of Selected News Sources." Listed under Magazines: The New Republic and The Nation (but not National Review). Under Medical/Health Care, National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood of America, Inc. (but not any pro-life groups).

Under Women/Minorities: the National Organization for
Women and the Women's Legal Defense Fund (but not Concerned
Women for America). Under Special Interest/Social Issues: Common
Cause, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty
International USA, the Association of Community Organizations
for Reform Now (ACORN), the Children's Defense Fund, Handgun
Control Inc., the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People
for the American Way, SANE/FREEZE, and the Union of Concerned Scientists
(but only two conservative organizations, the National Rifle
Association and the National Right to Life Committee).

What criteria does WJR use to choose its listings? Advertising Coordinator Lisa Jordan told MediaWatch that WJR
does its own research, takes referrals from its editorial
staff, and accepts some requests that are sent in. Jordan
explained inclusion is based on "how beneficial the source would be
for a working journalist." Why are there so few conservative
groups? Says Jordan, "A lot of the time we just don't have space
available." Not even for the Heritage Foundation, the largest
conservative think tank? "It's evidently not one we are familiar
with."

Revolving Door: Writing Reagan

Writing Reagan. Simon and Schuster has hired Robert Lindsey, West Coast Bureau Chief for The New York Times for over a decade, to help former President Ronald Reagan put together his memoirs. Lindsey wrote The Falcon and the Snowman in 1979 and a book last year on the Mormon murders for the same publisher. Reagan's book is expected sometime in 1991.

Riegle Service. Karolyn Wallace, a KABC-TV general
assignment reporter for the past two years, is the new Press
Secretary to Senator Don Riegle, a liberal Michigan Democrat.
Before traveling to Los Angeles, Wallace spent four years as a
reporter for WJRT-TV in Flint, Michigan.

Wallace replaces Mike Russell, Riegle's Press Secretary for
nine years. Before coming to D.C. Russell worked as assignment
manager for then ABC owned WXYZ-TV in Detroit. A few months ago
Russell took the press job in the office of U.S. Representative Bill
Ford (D-Mich.). Like Wallace, he also once worked for Flint's WJRT.

A Progressive Position. From 1972 to 1973 Robert Shapiro was a
Fellow with the far-left Institute for Policy Studies. Now 16
years later Shapiro is back with a think tank. He's Vice
President of the newly formed Progressive Policy Institute, a
group founded by former Democratic Leadership Council officials.
In between, Shapiro was Legislative Director for Senator
Patrick Moynihan and spent four years as an U.S. News & World Report Associate Editor, a position he left last year to join the Dukakis campaign as Deputy Issues Director.

NBC's New York Law. NBC has appointed a new Executive
Vice President and general counsel for the company: Richard
Cotton, a long-time Washington lawyer. Cotton served as
Executive Secretary to Carter's Health, Education and Welfare Secretary
Joseph Califano until 1979 when he jumped to the Department of
Energy as special counsel to Deputy Secretary John Sawhill.

From Cincinnati Post to D.C. Post. Claudia
Winkler, a publications editor for the moderate to conservative
American Enterprise Institute from 1975 to 1982, has been named
chief editorial writer in Washington, D.C. for the
Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. After writing Cincinnati Post
editorials for two years, in 1985 the Scripps-Howard owned newspaper
promoted her to editorial page editor, a position she held until
this June.

Cable News to Senate News. Kristy Schantz, a writer for CNN's
Headline News cable channel, has joined former Associated Press
reporter Bill Ritz on Senator Herbert Kohl's staff. She's now
working for Ritz as the Wisconsin Democrat's Deputy Press
Secretary. Schantz spent two years in Atlanta during which time,
the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported, she helped cover the Democratic National Convention.

Celebrating the Sandinistas

The tenth anniversary of Nicaragua's ill-fated Sandinista
revolution coincided with the tenth anniversary of favorable
reporting on the communist government's intentions. On July 20, Washington Post
reporters Julia Preston and Lee Hockstadter, for example, saw
Ortega's dictatorship not as the realization of communist
doctrine, but a temporary inconvenience caused by the Contra
war, driving the Sandinistas to "radicalize their revolution,
sharply curtailing civil liberties and starting down the path to
socialism. Since 1987, they have stepped back from their hardest
positions."

Preston's tilt was no surprise: before joining the Post,
Preston wrote for the Pacific News Service, an arm of the
far-left Institute for Policy Studies, and for the pro-Castro
North American Congress on Latin America.

ABC News correspondent Peter Collins also trumpeted the
Sandinista version of history: "They brought with them Marxist
ideas about spreading wealth and creating a new, unselfish
society. And in the first few years, they did manage to reduce
illiteracy, the infant death rate, and launched the biggest land reform
in Central America. But the Reagan Administration saw the
Sandinistas as a threat and forced them into a war with the
U.S.- backed Contras." J.D. Gannon of The Christian Science Monitor
found the Sandinistas have "avoided the systematic violent
excesses of their U.S.-supported neighbors...Nicaragua is the
only country in Central America which vigorously prosecutes some
of its own soldiers and officers."

Preston and Hockstadter heard only kind words in Ortega's
July 19 speech: "President Daniel Ortega struck a new
conciliatory tone and appealed for national 'serenity'...Today,
Ortega again reached out to his political opposition." But New York Times
reporter Mark Uhlig heard something else: "'UNO is
nothing...UNO is nothing'...The partisan rhyme, which was repeated
throughout the speech and shouted back by the audience at Mr.
Ortega's invitation, gave unusual prominence to the opposition
coalition."

Washington Times reporter Peter LaBarbera focused on a La Prensa
poll showing 61 percent of Nicaraguans would say no to six more
years of Ortega. But CBS reporter Doug Tunnell predicted on Sunday Morning
July 23 that "if there were to be an election right now, Ortega
would win." Does Nicaragua threaten the U.S.? No, they're more
interested in "feeding and caring for their own people, keeping
their promise of ten years ago, a revolution for the poor." He
admitted "They haven't done that yet," but insisted "that's
their number one priority."

The Time - RNC Saga Continues

Last month MediaWatch awarded its Janet Cooke Award to Time
magazine for its vicious, double-barreled assault on Republican
National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater. An article titled "How
to Spread a Smear" by Senior Writer Margaret Carlson blamed
Atwater for the now famous Foley memo. Both the press and
congressional Democrats charged the memorandum was a smear on
Foley's character because it compared his liberal voting record
to self-proclaimed gay representative Barney Frank. An accompanying
editorial insert box "Sorry Is Not Enough" called Atwater a
"muck maven" and demanded that President Bush "sack" him. Senior
Editor Terry Zintl told MediaWatch that National Correspondent Larry Barrett penned the un-bylined editorial.

Since that time, MediaWatch has learned more about the story. Its competitors, U.S. News and Newsweek, were spending hours on the phone interviewing both Atwater and RNC Chief of Staff Mary Matalin, but not one Time
reporter ever bothered to call the RNC to discuss the Foley memo. And
there's more: when asked if she had spoken with anyone at Time after the June 19 article came out, Matalin told MediaWatch:
"Yes, both Lee and I spoke with Barrett who said 'Had I been
there [in Washington], this would never have happened.'" That's
before she knew Barrett had written the editorial box. "Barrett
definitely tried to lead Lee and me to believe he had nothing to
do with the articles. No question about it," Matalin stated.

Barrett declined to talk to MediaWatch about the
specifics of the editorial: "That's between them and me, rather
than them, and you, and me." Did he mislead Atwater and Matalin?
Barrett claimed: "When they complained to me later about the
lack of contact, I did tell them had I been there it would have been
different. I did not tell them that the tone of the finished
product or products would have been different."

That Atwater was never interviewed is poor journalism. That
Barrett would write an unsigned editorial and subsequently try
to convince his target he had nothing to do with it, is
unethical. So much for openness and honesty at Time.

Newspeak on Abortion

In its first issue following the Supreme Court's Webster decision, Newsweek
took an in-depth look at abortion -- from the pro-abortion
side. In framing the issue, focusing the problem, and choosing
experts, Newsweek showed its clear preference for the issues and language of legal abortion advocates.

1. Framing the Debate. Reporter Ann McDaniel framed the
abortion question as "a woman's right to make one of the larger
decisions of her life" and "women who each year choose abortion
as the best way to resolve their personal dilemmas."

McDaniel labeled the two sides in the abortion debate
"conservatives and opponents of abortion" and "women's rights
activists," ignoring the "liberal" label for the pro-abortion
side. Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion "chilled abortion
advocates everywhere," but McDaniel left out that those same
words cheered pro-life advocates.

Ironically, in its boxed note on home abortions, Newsweek
slipped. "Do-it-yourself abortion is hazardous to your health,"
read the headline. But whose health? "Sadly," the article read,
"many home remedies could damage a fetus instead of kill it."

2. Focusing the Problem. Throughout the article, the
magazine's reporting matched the statements by "pro-choice"
sources. Planned Parenthood's Matty Bloom decried "a two-tiered
system where women with means can fly to exercise their freedom
of choice, whereas those without means are forced into
childbearing." Newsweek echoed those thoughts: "With
Webster the court has further limited the access of poor people"
to abortion. In other words, state strictures "will have their
greatest effect upon the poor, the young, and the uneducated."

The article went on: "poor women will again bear the brunt of
such regulation," "pro-choice advocates argue that banning
public facilities is tantamount to eliminating abortions for
many poor or young women" and "the young and the poor would e
affected most adversely." So Newsweek concluded, "the court's rulings could make it all but impossible for poor women or teenagers to get abortions."

3. Use of Sources.Newsweek devoted five pages to
state-level restrictions on abortion. Americans United for Life
got two quotes; a spokesman for Florida's Right to Life was
quoted once, as was a "right-to-life legislator." But those
wanting abortion legal were quoted a total of ten times, twice
as often as the pro-life side.

Janet Cooke Award: TBS: Abortion Advocacy

The Supreme Court's Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services
decision has sent abortion proponents and opponents scurrying
to the grass roots in an effort to persuade local constituencies
of their cause. But pro-abortion forces, with huge financial
backing and a media sympathetic to their cause, now have cable
guru Ted Turner and his vast, supposedly objective telecommunications
empire behind their cause. Through Cable News Network, Headline
News, and Superstation TBS, Turner stands to make a significant
impact on the debate.

His new 30 minute documentary Abortion: For Survival
(which aired July 20, 22, and 23 on TBS) is the latest of many
Turner programs supporting abortion. Its blatantly pro-abortion
stance earns Turner the August Janet Cooke Award.

Turner has crafted a clever way to spread his political views
through his media outlets. By chairing the Better World Society
(BWS), Turner has aired more than 35 leftist and pro-Soviet
documentaries and commercials on TBS and CNN. Through
contractual agreements BWS produces these advocacy programs, which are
then aired free of charge on Turner networks. In cooperation with
the International Planned Parenthood Federation, BWS produced
and TBS aired Increase and Multiply? in 1987.

BWS is so committed to abortion that Zhou Boping, Vice
Chairman of the China Family Planning Association (CFPA), sits
on its Board of Directors. The CFPA enforces the regime's
one-child-per- family population control program which has led to more
than ten million forced abortions per year. Nevertheless, BWS
awarded CFPA one of its 1988 Better World Medals.

Abortion: For Survival is the most recent BWS
initiative to promote abortion. Explaining the need for the
program, Turner stated recently: "I am alarmed that forces
opposed to birth control are growing in strength, even while explosive
population growth overwhelms the developing world. Political
efforts in the United States to block family planning
assistance, including legal access to abortion, adversely affect
vitally needed family planning and population stabilization
programs throughout the world."

The program was co-produced with Eleanor Smeal's Fund for The
Feminist Majority. The video opens with an actual abortion.
Once the minute-long procedure is completed, the woman declares:
"To lawmakers, I would like to say that there are hundreds of
thousands of women whose lives are being affected. It's not a
political thing, it's not a philosophical thing. It's women's
lives."

The abortion documentary viciously attacks the pro-life
movement: "In what could be termed a rash of domestic terrorism,
factions in the anti-abortion minority have turned to tactics
of increasing violence and harassment."

By twisting and distorting the facts, the video also
attempted to translate the goal of abortion on demand in America
to the world arena: "The World Health Organization estimates
that 430 million people do not have enough to eat and suffer
from malnutrition... Abortion is a necessity for millions of women
world-wide....In a civilized society we owe women the right to make
this decision safely. It is a matter of survival....We have
forgotten that this is a moral right."

BWS put together an hour-long discussion to follow the
documentary including abortion opponents Congressman Robert
Dornan and Nellie Gray, and abortion supporters Smeal and Planned
Parenthood's Faye Wattleton. But were Turner and BWS really interested
in an unbiased, balanced presentation in its panel follow-up?
Turner certainly wasn't, commenting: "We'll give the other bozos
a chance to talk back. They look like idiots anyway."

BWS hired liberal commentator Martin Agronsky to moderate. He
weighted the panel to the pro-abortion side, repeatedly asking
leading questions such as "If abortion and birth control become
illegal in more countries, and birth rates go up, how will we
handle the increased competition for finite resources?" Between
panel segments, actress Margot Kidder, in free ad time, told
television viewers BWS "believes that all women must have access to
all available methods for controlling their own fertility, including
abortion."

To balance Abortion: For Survival, Gray asked BWS to also air a pro-life documentary, either Eclipse of Reason or its predecessor The Silent Scream.
Gray's request was denied, according to BWS Associate Director
Victoria Markell because "We had already determined the format
of the program." TBS publicist Kirsten White was not aware of
the request but said that TBS Executive Vice President Bob Levy,
"in conjunction with Ted Turner," would have the "final say
so." White claimed: "At this point, we feel that the panel
discussion that is being produced to follow it up will give
ample opportunity to both sides to discuss the issue."

TBS officials jockeyed to paint the presentation as balanced
through ads on TBS and CNN, but Turner admitted at a recent
shareholders meeting that his personal feelings play a role in
what is aired. Turner, who controls 61 percent of Turner Broadcasting
stock, proceeded to defeat a proposed resolution that would
guarantee "equitable" distribution of free airtime.

That's in keeping with Turner's "no holds barred" attitude
toward broadcasting and public opinion making. It's also
allowable in a free and democratic society. But while Turner can
propagandize, viewers can also refuse his propaganda. When you
view Abortion: For Survival, keep in mind the Better World
Society's goals. Remember that Turner and his networks may be the
greatest asset ever to the pro-abortion forces. Remember that you
control your television sets, not Turner.

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